Book Review - The Rise and Fall of Soviet Power

The Rise and Fall of Soviet Power: A Collection of 9 Essays by Gary S. Zeidman

(Kindle Ed. Location 1182)
...diplomacy is rarely pure or altruistic...

Before this one I had read many books written by people who call themselves either Communists, Socialists or both.

To me this one was full of fresh points about the “real” face of old Soviet Union’s so-called “Communism” and “Socialism”, which were as a matter of fact “fake” and “empty” names to hook up and win the support from the people’/ popul’ation (in-sever’able/ -separ’able bɔtt’om/ boss’/ base’/ bas’ic [resource] of state-/ nation-building) after all.

The real reason for all the bloody revolutions in our history:
(Kindle Ed. Location 77)
...The February Revolution was not “created” or “invented” by leadership; instead it was “automatically reborn” out of the trampled souls of the people.

(Kindle Ed. Location 73)
...Their appetite was real and the bread lines long but more so the struggle for bread epitomized the Russian starvation for justice against the current authority...

Starvation...the people, the real proletariats didn’t have time to read and think about ideologies. They were just mad and unhappy because of the harsh life conditions ahead of them, and so they loved to hear good news from these "ideologists" who vowed to alleviate the pain they were suffering from. These ideologists used the poor people's crushed emotion as an opportunity to seize the popul’ar support and power in their respective societies.

It was just another political attempt to kick out the old ones in power so as for the new guys to seize it...as always, which I had already pointed out in my Book 3: Admiral Lee and the First Global War.

Seriously, so far, almost everything, every attempt for a revolution or a change has deep down been based on purpose of “personal” achievements and satisfactions ex-cept/ -sauf/ -save the rare cases like Admiral LEE Sunshin, the Mentor of Human Race.

(Kindle Ed. Location 369)
...Making the kulak the sworn class enemy was a strategic move to mobilize the middle peasantry into the kolkhoz. Through use of this scapegoat Stalin ensured organized fear, organized discrimination and organized terror. Dekulakization became institutionalized; terror by any means necessary followed. The line between the kulak and other peasant was purposefully blurry. A peasant that did not join the kolkhoz, could be deported or shot (as was the fate of the kulak). The kolkhoz was not ‘voluntary’ as proclaimed. Instead, dekulakization was an attack on the peasantry as a whole. “Collectivization was in essence a gigantic party-and-police operation,” approximately 7-15 million peasants were expropriated. With the new waves of terror inherent in Stalinism, prisons filled up. Inmates soared from 30,000 to 2 million in 1929. Keep in mind, this was just the opening act of the new way. The peasantry was now “under state control.” Free markets were eliminated. The mandate of the new economy did not care for the welfare of the peasant. The kolkhoz became a center for disease, starvation and death. Protest by the peasantry only worsened their situation. Corruption within the localities took advantage of this...

(Kindle Ed. Location 401)
...To stop peasants fleeing to Moscow, Leningrad or elsewhere, the internal passport system (prospiska “residential registration”), was introduced which required residents to register with the police wherever they go or risk arrest...

So everything was to control the people who want to migrate for a better living condition like we Humans have done in last hundreds of thousands of years. In North Korea and the Soviet Union it had to happen to cover the incompetent regimes.

The bottom line is that the Soviet Union, as well as the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK: North Korea) and People’s Republic of China (PRC: China), was NOT an’y “Socialist” and “Communist” state:
(Kindle Ed. Location 273)
Antithetical to Lenin’s aspirations and proclaimed ideologies, he created responsive public policy which in effect created a state. In the Marxist doctrine the state was supposed to wither away. Eventually there was not supposed to be any state. Unfortunately, not only was a state created, but under Stalinism an extremely strong one was came to life. With the birth of the Stalinist state came the death of the socialist ideal.

(Kindle Ed. Location 314)
...Socialism in one country was not socialism: it was state building...Stalinism was more than a return to serfdom or the horrors that resulted under the economic guise of collectivization and dekulakization. The Purges, the Party nomenclature, and the cultural cleansing, also shaped the minds and institutions of the Soviet Union. Formal Party purges took place throughout Stalin’s reign eliminating the big names of opposition. The goal was to implant the cult of Stalinism into the minds of an entire public...The libraries were purged and cleansed replaced with the appropriate reading materials. Censorship permeated every form of communication. Stalinism dictated the truth and beat it into you until you stopped questioning even yourself. Concurrent to the purge process pseudo-democratic public debates on the new Soviet constitution were publicized. People wrote newspapers and attended local meetings offering suggestions. The process was a ploy by the government and the suggestions and pleading obviously ignored. The entire network became further centralized as a result. Truth and culture were organized and dictated; fear was an establishment...

(Kindle Ed. Location 476)
...Stalinism began in the USSR but effected the entire world; it flourished under Stalin but lingers long after him...Stalin, abandoned the socialist ideology and strengthened a state. Stalinism was antithetical to the socialism it proclaimed to represent. The organizational mannerisms, adopted and left behind, were not representative of socialism, but were a product of Stalinism.

(Kindle Ed. Location 781)
...Stalin used Marxism/Leninism as a means to further his domestic agenda. The effects of Stalinism were horrific. His abandonment of true socialism, and use of its name, justified the terror that took an equivalent amount of lives than the second world war in its entirety...

The truth is that it was one powerful man’s iron fist that led the state towards one unified direction with all its resources effectively con-centr’ated to have built the Soviet Empire, we remember today, NOT the Socialist or Communist “Ideology” at all.

You know how ironical it truly is that those who have got through shallow studies and who have been simply hooked up by the "preachers" become blind followers of “Socialism”, whereas those who have read the Socialist books thoroughly are less likely to support the ideology.

(Kindle Ed. Location 307)
Although psychological deficiencies fanned the fire it did not ignite it. Stalin’s personality traits were key to enabling his political maneuvering. Stalin was a better politician than his rivals. Stalin understood the trenches and the low level officials. He made alliances with them and won them over. Stalin was manipulative and relationships were utilitarian. He understood what was necessary to retain power. He kept his information circles tight and not in the now of each other. He suppressed any opposition and others only heard what they were supposed to. He was a good liar to all. In 1929, shortly after his fiftieth birthday, the Cult of Stalin(ism) bloomed. Stalin was “the boss” and all cultural and intellectual endeavors pursued the glory Stalin(ism)’s ‘socialism.’ He initially bound himself and his goals to Lenin and allowed the cult mentality to sweep the old away and hail the new way (the ‘ism’) and its hero. Academics enforced Stalinism as the correct system, in line with past ideals, and mythmaking and folklore reinforced the self proclaimed truth. The new truth affected every aspect of life. In factory, classroom, or farm, new idols were sought to imitate. Once Stalin’s propaganda machine was set in motion, inertia cranked the wheels, and the ‘ism’ flowered.

And who and what my dear openly-Communist buddies from college learned their blind faith in the ideologies from? The teachers and professors who learned only the same like blind people from these guys and their writing pieces, just like today's so-called the mainstream Korean linguistics professors since JU Sikyeong's students and those who tried to burn Galilei to death. These people's teachers and textbooks all said the same thing, so to them they were learning the true knowledge, and it became more like religious faith in them.

Their political ideology has, however, been simply an’other way for power to these helpless guys for their own good, not really chasing after an’y "cause" for the people like they’ve claimed. It seems to work among those who got a lot of complaints towards other people and their societies without seeking solution in themselves. It is just like the Korean lefties today who keep putting every blame on Japan, while, it turned out after several surveys, they have never even thought about what then-Korean authority in the mid 19th century did in 1863, 3 years "before" the Japanese initiated the modernization in 1868. What's more surprising is how easily the people get hooked up by the romantically depicted characters in social media like movies and soap-operas, not by thorough studies or analyses...sigh.

They keep shouting out loud about their right for their self-determination and independence, but why are they so dependent in real? Everything must be done by others. It is Japan, their government and, after all, the world that gotta take care of their lives and future while they just want to avoid all the hardships and responsibility ahead of them. Successful mind’/ ment’ality is “really” independent and responsible for oneself (read my another review of Berserk).

There in the book real fresh pieces of in-form’ation are found:
(Kindle Location 80)
...The Bolshevik leadership was either in exile or in prison during the February Revolution. Literally, they were not there and did not lead the revolt...

(Kindle Location 239)
In proportion as the exploitation of one individual to another is put an end to, the exploitation of one nation to another will also be put an end to. In proportion as the antagonism between classes within the nation vanishes, the hostility of one nation to another will come to an end. - Karl Marx

Sounds like Karl Marx didn’t even understand the very base, the importance of the access to vital resources for each sovereign nation. He was a dreamer, and it was because he was only a book-smart. If he really cared about the very class why wouldn’t he act’ually ever join the people and do some harsh labor works vital to his society’s survival? How dare he’d boast that he knew what the labor men really wanted? Many of my “Communist” and “Socialist” friends are the same. Most of them read the same books written by the same guys again and again while teaching for living; they never work in the field.

I recommend the readers to read my other reviews on Two Years before the Mast, Master and Commander and Dutch East India Company: History of the World’s First Multinational Corporation.

(Kindle Location 243)
...Stalinism represented itself as revolutionary modernization and progress; practically it created mass starvation, coercion, and death. Its legacy left the living without soul and an enterprise to guarantee it.

And look! This is the outcome made by those who didn't even understand the very base! Why do they think countries like S. Korea under the pacifist principle of its far-left anti-war liberals gotta send its troops to almost every conflict zone in our globe?

It's all about using the international maritime trade passage. No country can thrive without the passage secured for both the necessary "resources" and "markets" (a great idea alone can't do nothing to produce and sell actual stuff in real), and it isn’t possible without joining the international community and sharing the common values and interests. The only other way's to take it by force.

So, after all, Lenin had to run his state like the People's Republic of China has been doing since Deng took the Chinese Communist Party leadership, and VOILA:
(Kindle Ed. Location 261)
The famine and economic ruin signified that war communism had failed. The establishment of NEP opened the market and created stability between industry and agriculture; many believed this was a retreat from socialism. Ironically, Lenin used the capitalist methods (embodied in NEP) as a means of repairing the damage done during war communism. The economy and the countryside had regained order - NEP successfully accomplished what it had set out to do. By the beginning of 1927, three years after Lenin’s death, the Soviet peasantry, “had good reason to look forward to a tolerable future.”

To be fair, the book is "incomplete" with so many typos and errors to be edited for the final publication with its price tag on it.

There are so many of them, and so I will present here only some of my findings (roughly a tenth of them) for both the author's and readers' convenience.

(Kindle Ed. Location 1262)
...and that such bilateral negotiation does not have to jeopardize ones allies...

Correction: ...one's allies...

(Kindle Ed. Location 88)
The Petrograd Soviet asserted it’s power by Order Number One...

A common typo: its (many of the same typos have been found throughout the pages).

(Kindle Ed. Location 284)
...His decision to chose this particular name is interesting...

Grammatical errors like this: to chose > to choose (or) to have chosen

(Kindle Ed. Location 924)
...Stalin’s hope for a putsch, lead by the informant Zujovic, was thwarted by Zujovic’s arrest (May 7).

Another: “led” by

Pretty a lot of misspellings have been found as well: Even a simple month like February’s been found misspelled.

(Kindle Ed. Location 316)
...and was left alone to fulfill his own political agenda. “On Party Unity” was then published which made factions illegal and secured that opponents could not interfere in the future,

Punctuation: period (.), not comma (,).

Besides, there are countless “space issues” found to be edited.

So many weird sentences:
(Kindle Ed. Location 1093)
...It is telling that the American’s chose to describe the improvement of Cold War relations by adopting a French word...

I wouldn't call this one a [pro]grammatical error, but the sentence just doesn't make sense. It should be either

...It is telling that the Americans’ choice to describe the improvement of Cold War relations was to adopt a French word...

or

...It is telling that the Americans chose to describe the improvement of Cold War relations by adopting a French word...

(Kindle Ed. Location 1022)
...Knowledgeable of the upcoming strike the United States, publicly warned the USSR not to invade Poland (March 26).

What is this? lol

(Kindle Ed. Location 1499)
Angola was wrought with civil war in 1975 Portugal left...

What?

(Kindle Ed. Location 1849)
...indebt ness...

...sigh...

So many careless typos that could have been prevented with only one careful editing work.

(Kindle Ed. Location 710)
...Western participation was significant but late; in some eyes suspiciously late. The tardy arrival inflated the excessive Soviet burden and resulted in the Soviets taking the Reichstag when they did (liberating most of Eastern Europe along the way). Aside from a late arrival and victory at a cost of massive human loss during the war, Churchill carved up post-war Europe with Stalin in a percentages deal (not approved by the US)...

American participation, not Western participation: The Netherlands, Belgium, France and Britain were the second under attack from the Nazi forces since September 1st, 1939. Soviet Union was under attack half a year after the Battle of Britain was concluded since the Nazi plan to subjugate the British Naval Forces failed. Now they had to reach the resource-rich east through the ground passages, so a war with USSR and their North African campaign towards the Sinai Peninsula became inevitable. It was just the United States, which joined the war only after Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941. Yes, it was quite a late participation.

Plus, the author forgets one important fact that the Soviet ground forces could move forward towards mainland Germany thanks to the Western allied forces stopping the German advance towards the Middle East in North Africa before their successful "landing" in Italy and later in France opening up another line in European theater while fighting another enemy the Empire of Japan in the Pacific and Indian Ocean.

The Allied Forces back then had to launch their "amphibious" assaults from Britannia and Africa to secure the first piece of ground in mainland European Continent due to the Fascist occupation of the entire Western European Continent except the neutral Spain and Switzerland. I don't think the Soviet forces with no money and capable naval power could make that kind of military operations.

(Kindle Ed. Location 1043)
“...The Long Term Programme for the Development of the Economic and Technical Cooperation between the USSR and Poland” was established; Poland was reintegrated into the Comecon; and “Polonia” allowed Polish émigrés to return and establish business. Underground, the ‘second society’ was formed and developed. After the curtain rose, a legalized Solidarity elected Walesa President.

Definitely written for the professors to read as the book’s a collection of his graduate school projects. However, if the readers are serious about learning the subject, the definitions of each term like GDR, CMEA or Comecon are easy to find. Just press the words softly and an automatic dictionary will pop up with easy and satisfactory explanations for you.

A mere copy (plus a little bit of additional information) of the previous chapter with different title:
(Kindle Ed. Location 1486)
...Most likely the Soviets feared losses that would be incurred by the Israeli military as well as instigating American involvement. The Americans probably shelved Sadat’s overtures because of bad timing with increased attention on Vietnam.

It’s nice that this copied new chapter was much improved from the previous one with a great con-clos’/ -clus’ion added to it:
(Kindle Ed. Location 1571)
In conclusion, détente was no more and no less than a vazvyadka napryazhnennosti. Each side held on to their own theoretical constitution and realistic objectives. Meanwhile each side expected the other to live up to its idealized vision of the détente. Détente came to an end because it could do nothing other than that. The practicalities in which the end manifested are further evidence of two unvarying ideologies, they were not the causes for the end. The subsequent renewed arms race in the 1980’s does not indicate a new Cold War because the first Cold War had never ceased. Détente was a stage or better a phase. Cold War was a battle in which an idealized coexistence could not exist. Only one power could prevail victorious.

(Kindle Ed. Location 1323)
...The Soviets won the détente prize. Evidence that America conceded and acknowledged this was their acceptance of ‘peaceful coexistence.’ Therefore, we end on a note of irony. This new relationship afforded the Soviet Union the confidence to pursue its new wave of interventionalism in the Third World in the mid ‘70’s; thereby creating the fall of détente. The limits of détente were evident in its sources.

Another great assessment despite the typos like '70s.

(Kindle Ed. Location 1199)
The leaders of China were beyond ideology in their dealings with us. Sheer peril had established the absolute primacy of geopolitics. They were in effect freezing one front by a tacit nonaggression treaty with us.

Yeah, it's never been really about ideology. Both USSR and PRC have only used ideology to control the people'/ popul'arity.

Despite the incomplete form'at as a product, the book is still worth reading for pondering. The author's hard work on all his research and assessment give us some insight for our future facing a rising superpower-wannabe so-called the "People's" Republic of China. Once the book is revised and edited properly, it could be used as a priceless reference for anyone interested in the subject.